Each summer, LEGO releases a series of beach/water sport related sets in the LEGO Friends line. These sets often come with bright and sunny colors, cute water creatures, and lots of useful accessories.
This year, we have three new sets in the collection, the #42623 LEGO Friends Beach Water Scooter, the #42625 LEGO Friends Beach Smoothie Stand, and the #42630 LEGO Friends Heartlake City Water Park.
Two sets from the new LEGO Friends Adventure Camp series could also be added to this list; the #42626 LEGO Friends Adventure Camp Water Sports, and the #42631 LEGO Friends Adventure Camp Tree House. We have talked about the LEGO Friends Adventure Camp series previously (see: LEGO Friends Adventure Camp Sets Overview), and today we will discuss the other three summer sets featuring water fun.
The #42623 LEGO Friends Beach Water Scooter comes with 84 pieces and features two small water scooters, a lifeguard tower, two mini-dolls with life jackets, a dolphin, and a crab. Although this set is mostly meant for kids, adult builders can add it to their city dioramas’ beach scene. I really like the coral-colored umbrella! This is one of only three sets the 6×6 dish piece appears in this color. This is a good basic accessory set for beach scenes and the price is only $9.99. If you’re interested, you can find it at the LEGO Friends section of the Online LEGO Shop.
The #42625 LEGO Friends Beach Smoothie Stand is another small and affordable set with only 213 pieces and the price of $19.99. It features a nicely colored smoothie stand with a thatched roof, a swing, a beach buggy, a cooler, a couple of menu boards and signpost, (all stickered), two mini-dolls wearing life jackets, and a cute turtle. I also really like the brick-built sign on top, shaped life fruits. The orange slice is a printed 1×1 round plate that’s still fairly rare and this set has two of them. The 1×1 printed brick representing an orange juice carton is also rare. The same can be said about the dark-tortoise window frames, which only appeared in this color in eight other sets. The reddish-orange claw pieces used for the thatched roof are exclusive to this set (as of this writing), and you get seven of them. You also get four of the medium-nougat version of the same piece, which only appeared in seven other sets. And the bright-green turtle is exclusive to this set. The bottom line is that the set looks good, you get a lot of unique and rare pieces, and it can fit right in with LEGO Friends or LEGO City displays. You can find it at the LEGO Friends section of the Online LEGO Shop.
The #42630 LEGO Friends Heartlake City Water Park comes with 814 pieces and features an elaborate and highly decorated aqua park with a corkscrew slide, a tube slide, a waterfall slide (with a lever to launch a boat through the waterfall), plus a rotating whirlpool, a shower, restroom, lockers, snacks, and tons of sea creature decorations (some are special elements, others are stickers). And take a look at that gorgeous brick-built jellyfish! Besides the three mini-dolls, there is also a cute little micro-doll that comes with this set. There is a lot to like here! If you want to check it out, it’s currently available at the LEGO Friends section of the Online LEGO Shop.
Although these may not be the most talked about LEGO sets this year, they are solid offerings. LEGO Friends uses a lot of beautiful and rare colors, always includes many useful accessories, and can be great starter sets or add-ons to city layouts. LEGO Friends sets are also fairly priced, and I noticed that they often go on sale and don’t do as well on secondary marketplaces. This means you can often purchase them inexpensively to build up your bulk LEGO stash for custom projects.
What do you think? How do you like the latest wave of LEGO Friends sets? Have you gotten any of them already? Feel free to share your thoughts and own reviews in the comment section below!
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The roof of the smoothie stand is great. Those claw pieces are so useful. It’s great to have another color.
Not into friends, but I like the water slides. I suppose it could be used for minifigs just as well.
I’m surprised how many new pieces they included in these sets. I haven’t thought of parting out Friends sets for parts, but like you said, they are often on sale. I will keep an eye on these.